Sun TV wins Hyderabad bidding race

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Calcutta/New Delhi: Sun TV network has won the Hyderabad franchise of the IPL, bidding Rs 85.05 crore per year for a five-year deal. The decision was announced after a meeting of the IPL’s governing council in Mumbai on Thursday, and a week after Deccan Chargers, the original Hyderabad franchise, was terminated after failing to meet the deadline for raising its bank guarantee.

The other bidder for the franchise was PVP Ventures, who offered Rs 69.03 crore per year.

“Sun TV Network have won the Hyderabad franchise for an amount of Rs 85.05 crore per year. This franchise fee represents a premium of over a 100 per cent above the amount paid by Deccan Chronicle Holdings Limited (DCHL) for the Hyderabad franchise in 2008,” BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale said in a release.

In an effort to attract more bidders, the BCCI had kept the base price at a reasonable Rs 60 crore per year. The DCHL had bought the Hyderabad franchise for Rs 428 crore for a period of 10 years.

The BCCI had floated the tenders for a new IPL franchise after terminating Deccan Chargers’ contract on September 15 but DCHL had challenged it at the Bombay High Court.

According to an IPL source, Sun TV has paid Rs 20 crore as signing amount and also the bank guarantee of Rs 85 crore for the first year.

The source said that the Deccan Chargers players, who are now left without a team following the termination of the franchise, will get the first option in the new team owned by Sun TV.

Those players not selected will go to the auction pool.

Former IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi fired a fresh salvo at BCCI president N Srinivasan, alleging that he is trying to “gift” the Hyderabad franchise to his “friends”.

“So finally Sun TV has got an IPL franchise. I had predicted three months ago it will be Sun as the BCCI president wanted it that way. Can’t be a bigger scam than this. Someone should see N Srinivasan’s and India Cements relationships with Sun TV. Don’t forget the Kalaignar TV and India TV scams,” Modi wrote on a social netwoking site.

Meanwhile, the Gauhati High Court restrained the BCCI from taking a final decision with regard to the selection of a new team for the IPL.

The court passed the order while hearing a PIL filed by a city-based businessman and social worker Ghisa Lal Agarwal challenging the tender notice dated October 14, 2012, issued by the BCCI inviting bids from 12 cities for inclusion of a new team in the IPL from 2013 onwards.

Admitting the PIL, a singlejudge bench of Justice B. D. Agarwal issued notices to the respondents, including the BCCI, and sought their reply by November 7.